For the mug amateur, professional golf is borderline witchcraft. For we – the hacker, the chopper, the handicapped – it is impossible to relate to the cognition that golf’s elite have for their game.
It is a dark art to simply play in, much less contend for, the Open Championship, the oldest and greatest major hosted by a royal and ancient society at the ‘home of golf’.
To win on the Old Course at St Andrews? Well, this is not normal behaviour at all. It is among the reasons golf fans love Australia’s latest major champion, Cameron Smith.
He reminds us of ourselves; he is an everyman who happens to be unbelievably good at golf. And thus legions of us sat in front of televisions so very early on Monday morning and watched Smith, leading by one over local favourite Rory McIlroy, half-chunk his approach shot on the famous and difficult 17th hole.